Seeing The Light, Not The Dark!

Everyone loves weekend. Weekend is always waited by everybody along the week. The reason why it is so special is because it is a perfect time to cheer ourselves up after spending most of the time to work, study or in a duty during the week. Many people spend this special period of time for traveling or touring. Some of them decide to go to the beach, mountain, lake or even to mall for shopping. However, there are some people who only spend their weekend by staying and relaxing at their own house.

Personally, I am very pleased with this weekend time. Besides going somewhere to refresh my mood and release all negative feeling and distressful, I usually utilise this interval to do something labelled as "food gathering or livestock hunting". Becoming an international student in University of South Australia, I should be able to manage myself in order to survive.  Living in Adelaide where I am far away from home forces me to handle so-called domestic work myself including for that food gathering where I wander in market or supermarket for seeking weekly living stock. 

It is commonplace that everybody is fond of buying inexpensive goods. Indeed, the feeling is stronger     for those known as students especially an international student like me.  In Adelaide, the city where I live nowadays, basic needs such as rice, fish, oil, vegetables, fruits, etc are quite expensive. To dealt with, most of Adelaidean - the term which refer to the people who live in Adelaide, have their own unique strategies for getting their needs without having broke. Some of this approaches are to look at   Coles and Woolies (the two leading supermarkets in Adelaide or maybe in Australia) discount schemes, to shop at Sunday market or in the weekend to shop at central market which is famous with its "one dollar" offerings. 

Off course, as a student I should manage my time very well. I should or even must be able to balance my life of becoming a student and an human being. In a simple word, my position as a student should not ruin my human being life and vice versa. I have to able to feed myself, keep my healthy life and participate in social life as well as able to respond all of my duties and responsibilities as a student. This things are all about time management. To shop either in Sunday or Central market in the weekend and keep it as the stock during the weak ahead is one of my strategies in managing the time. Therefore, it is not only buying but also planning.  I have to plot what to cook on Monday, Tuesday and so forth and it will determine what to be purchased.

Last week, I went to Central market and bought several things such as beef, vegetables, fruits, eggs and sardines. I had  planned to make rendang on Monday, sprout stir-fry (tumis toge) on Tuesday, omelet for Wednesday, mushroom soup for Thursday and pumpkin curry (gulai labu) on Friday. everything is running well up to Thursday, but on Friday, a wonderful, fabulous, funny and extraordinary story obviously exist. This story which inspire me to write this posting. Even though this story is a bit foolish and ridiculous, the truth should be uttered and revealed.

The story of making pumpkin curry starts when I had set to make such the food on Friday which means at the end of parts of the week. Therefore, once purchasing the pumpkin in the market, I had to be sure that the pumpkin will last until Friday. In other word, It will not decay before I serve it as a curry. I had to be selective at this stage. Finding the right pumpkin regarding the size, quality and sure the price. I do not live with family, then to buy a whole, a complete pumpkin is not a wise decision because I won't be able to finish that pumpkin myself. If I just use a part of if and stock the rest also seems unwise decision as the rest pumpkin will decay. Lucky me, that there were some buyers who sold the half pumpkin in the market. By this half size makes me possible to finish it at once. however, there is adversity buying incomplete squash. Selecting the "good quality" one became more challenging and demanding. Off course the half size squash will not last as good as the complete one. therefore, I had to be more selective to chose the appropriate one. After struggling and inspecting for a few minutes then I simply picked one up which I believe the "best" one.

Days passed on. On Friday, based on the plan, I would like to "play" with the pumpkin that I had bought.  I opened the fridge and took some ingredients needed to make the pumpkin curry. I sliced tomatoes, chilli, onion and garlic. Once those spices were ready, then I started to handle the pumpkin. But somehow, it was weird with the pumpkin. It smelled as if it was not the pumpkin. From the appearance, it looked like pumpkin. The colour, the seed were like pumpkin. But how could this smells strange? It smelled like melon instead of  smelling like a pumpkin. I decided to slice a bit part of it and tasted it. It tasted like melon and I was sure for 100% that it was a melon, not a pumpkin. I went back to the fridge to look at my pumpkin assuming that i took the wrong one. However, there were nothing left in the fridge. It was the one that I bought  a few days ago. It was melon and not pumpkin. My question was how could I buy this melon? I didn't plan to purchase melon! How should I utilise this melon? How about my plan to cook pumpkin curry? How about the spices which I have prepared? Should I make melon curry? off course not! Had you seen or heard melon curry before??? absolutely not! Lol!

I told that story to some of my friends and all of them teased me with full of intention. I was bullied by this ridiculous moment. Some of them said how could I became foolish as I was not able to distinguish pumpkin and melon. Others tempted me by saying that it was a sign for me to find a girl who is able to serve me the meals. Whatever they said, I just kept silent, no comment.  I know they did not mean to hurt me. They only would like to make an intermezzo by teasing at me. The more I defence myself that I knew how to distinguish those fruits, the more intense they tempted and joked at me. No matter what, they were right that I bought the wrong thing and planned foolishly. Anyway, I kept my confident up, I kept optimistic. Nothing was wrong with my procurement. Though I could not make a squash curry, I still could enjoy the melon fruit. Nothing is useless, isn't it? I believe that every cloud has a silver lining.  Every single moment surely has a meaning.